Politics

The True Impact of Trump’s Strike on Iran

The president insists Iran’s nuclear facilities were “totally obliterated.” Not everyone is so sure.

First published in The Atlantic on June 23, 2025

by Missy Ryan, Jonathan Lemire, Ashley Parker, Isaac Stanley-Becker, and Shane Harris, The Atlantic

June 26, 2025 | reading time: 7 Min.

By his own account, the military operation that Donald Trump mounted against Iran over the weekend was an unqualified success. Saturday’s covert raid, in which U.S. bombers dropped a series of massive, tailor-made bombs onto fortified Iranian sites, left Tehran’s nuclear capability “completely and totally obliterated,” the president proclaimed in a triumphant White House address late that night.